Agents of SHIELD: 5 Marvel Comics Stories To Adapt On The Show
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD is currently on hiatus as it prepares to enter the final actor of its [...]
Agents of SWORD
SHIELD isn't the only espionage organization in the Marvel Universe, and in this case, the emphasis is on the word "universe."
Where SHIELD is concerned with keeping the peace on Earth, the organization called SWORD - Sentient World Observation and Response Department - focuses on defending Earth from threats coming from everywhere else.
SWORD was introduced into the Marvel Universe by Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron director and Marvel's Agents of SHIELD co-creator Joss Whedon during his run writing Astonishing X-Men for Marvel Comics.
SWORD is led by Abigail Brand, a half-alien character is every bit as formidable, capable, and badass as SHIELD's Nick Fury.
A SWORD story pod on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD would see the agents becoming aware of SWORD's existence for the first times. The two organizations would jockey over jurisdiction and for power while having to work together well enough to fend off an alien threat to earth.
Scorpio
Scorpio is a villain introduced in Jim Steranko's celebrated run writing Nick Fury's adventures in the 1960s.
Scorpio was a spy and a terrorist who was able to go toe to toe with the entire SHIELD organization. Scorpio targeted SHIELD training facilities, eliminating many agents in training.
Scorpio was eventually revealed to be Jake Fury, the brother of Nick Fury who had grown to resent Nick. What began as an espionage battle suddenly became quite personal for Fury.
For Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, it would probably be difficult and expensive to get Samuel L. Jackson to bring the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Nick Fury to television for an extended run. But then, Nick Fury isn't the poster boy for SHIELD in the MCU the same way that he is in the Marvel Comics Universe.
A Scorpio story arc on Agents of SHIELD would most likely want to shift the focus to Phil Coulson and make the terrorist someone from Coulson's past.
Secret War
Secret War is the 2004-2005 event series by Brian Michael Bendis and Gabrielle Dell'Otto that kicked off a series of event series that included Civil War, Secret Invasion, Siege, and eventually culminated in Avengers vs. X-Men. It is also the first appearance of Daisy "Quake" Johnson and plants the seeds for the creation of the Secret Warriors.
The story sees several Marvel superheroes being attacked by supervillains with advanced tech. The villains are being led by Lucia von Bardas, who took over as ruler of Latveria while Doctor Doom was trapped in Hell.
When the battle is concluded, Quake eventually reveals to the heroes that they were recruited by Nick Fury to go on a stealth mission to overthrew von Bardas' government because von Bardas' was in the process of outfitting supervillains with Doctor Doom's technology and setting them loose in the United State to destabilize the country. The heroes don't remember the mission because they were brainwashed on their return.
Adapted for Agents of SHIELD, it would be interesting to see the agents come under attack only to later find out it is retribution for a mission they underwent in between seasons and then had removed from their memories. The agents would have deal with the repercussions while attempting to piece together what happened and who sent them on the mission in the first place.
Original Sin
The value and danger of secrets and secrecy have been a theme of Marve's Agents of SHIELD since the very beginning. As fans will recall, "Skye" found her way into SHEILD as a member of the Rising Tide hacker collective take adhered to an "information wants to be free" philosophy.
Original Sin was a Marvel Comics event that was also about secrets, but more specifically about the revealing of them. When a supervillain decided to steal the Watcher's eye, the result was that every secret the Watcher had ever witnessed was made known.
The big twist came when it was revealed that Nick Fury had been for years acting a "the man on the wall," battling threats that no one else in the Marvel Universe was even aware of. He had also lost the formula in his blood that was keeping him young and had grown old, and he also had a hand in the murder of the Watcher.
On Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, the same story could be told by having the information that SHIELD has guarded for so long making its way into the public eye.
Architects Of Forever
In Marvel's Agents of SHIELD Season 3, viewers learned the true history of Hydra. Ti terrorist organization wasn't just a science-themed spinoff of the Third Reich, but had roots going all the way back to pre-history and worshipped the powerful Inhuman known as Hive.
The Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver SHIELD story "Architects of Forever" tells a similarly mythic history for SHIELD. The story reveals that, prior to becoming the modern espionage agency, SHIELD was orginally an oganization of heroes banded together to turn back cosmic threats to Earth, including the Brood and Galactus.
The miniseries also revealed that, over the course of its history, SHIELD had recruited the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton and, against his will, Nostradamus.
Fans have already been giving one version of an origin story for SHIELD, beginning with the SSR that eventually, through the work of Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, became SHIELD. But who says it all began there?
If the Kree were visiting the Earth early enough to seed the entire Inhuman race, than who is to say that didn't lead to the formation of an ogranization designed to protect against such threats?
